Gal Holiday & the Honky Tonk Revue’s first two albums relied heavily on vintage honky-tonk, rockabilly and Western swing songs. But on their new, third release, “Last to Leave,” singer Vanessa Niemann and her cohorts trot out 11 original compositions alongside a lone, left-field cover.

“You learn how to write songs by playing other people’s well-written songs,” Niemann said recently. “For many years, we concentrated on playing great material, and not worrying about whether it was ours or written by somebody else. I didn’t want to throw sub-par songs in there just because we wanted to say we wrote more original songs.”

That said, “it really is kind of scary to put an album out that really is who you are. All the questions come up: Does this represent us? Is it any good?”

Niemann needn’t have worried. “Last to Leave” is another finely wrought spin around a honky-tonk dancefloor, marked by her sumptuous twang of a voice, stout guitar lines and plenty of pedal steel. Gal Holiday & the Honky Tonk Revue celebrate “Last to Leave” with a headlining show at Rock ‘n’ Bowl on Friday, Jan. 17.

Niemann launched her career as a professional singer in Washington, D.C., at age 18, doing Andrews Sisters songs with Doc Scantlin & His Imperial Palms Orchestra. She moved to New Orleans in 1999 and sang with the Sophisticats before forming the Honky Tonk Revue in 2004.

Several months later, bassist David Brouillette, a native of Natchitoches, joined the Revue. He and Niemann have led the band ever since. Niemann functions as its public face while Brouillette, also her fiance, serves as musical director.

They’re joined by a fluid roster of musicians that may include pedal steel guitarist Steve Spitz and guitarist Dave James. Chris Adkins is a regular on lead guitar. Gregory Good is the featured rhythm guitarist (he also designed the new album’s cover art). Veteran New Orleans drummer Doug Belote plays on the new record, but Michael Sollars is the band’s full-time drummer. Tony Martinez, a hotshot pedal steel guitarist and singer-songwriter based in Nashville, is featured on “Last to Leave,” and will join the band for the Jan. 17 album release party.

GAL HOLIDAY & THE HONKY-TONK REVUE

What: A release party for the local honky-tonk band’s third album, ‘Last to Leave.’

When: Friday, Jan. 17, 9 p.m.

Where: Rock ‘n’ Bowl, 3000 S. Carrollton Ave., 504.861.1700.

Tickets: $10 at the door.

Funded by a Kickstarter campaign, “Last to Leave” was recorded at the local Esplanade Studios. The sound is warm and rich; there are no guest stars or slick audio effects.

“When you hear the album, that’s what you can expect to hear when you come see us live,” Niemann said. “Particularly the voice – I want that to sound warm, like you’re right there in the room with the person. That creates an intimacy in recorded music that’s lost sometimes in modern music.

“This is country music. The closer you are connected to the singer, the closer you feel to the story of the song.”

The stories on “Last to Leave” include “The Ballad of Addie and Zack,” a traditional “murder ballad” inspired by one of New Orleans’ more notorious post-Katrina homicides. Darker themes, especially lost love, recur on “Last to Leave.” The album’s only cover song, a re-imagining of the 1983 Pat Benatar hit “Love Is a Battlefield,” is in keeping with the tone.

Gal Holiday & the Honky Tonk Revue first performed “Love Is a Battlefield” at the 2012 Big Easy Awards. Bands were asked to play a song from the 1980s. Most delivered faithful renditions of ’80s hits. But Chris Adkins dreamed up a flattering, clever bluegrass arrangement that essentially reinvented “Love Is a Battlefield.”

Brouillette was into it; Niemann, at least initially, not so much. “We had people coming up to us afterward saying, ‘Why did you do that song?’” Niemann said. “We started defending our right to do whatever song we wanted to.

“I am definitely a person who, if somebody says I can’t do something,
I’m absolutely going to do it, or attempt to. It was that way having a
country band in New Orleans. People said it would never work. Nine years
and three albums later, we’ve officially proven that we have staying
power.”

The band played “Love Is a Battlefield” again several days after the Big Easy Awards at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival. It then disappeared from the Honk Tonk Revue's repertoire. A year later, it came up again as the musicians kicked around song ideas for “Last to Leave.”

“We were looking for a song that’s not in the genre that we could modify and turn into a country song,” Niemann said. “And so there you have it: ‘Love Is a Battlefield.’ I really have grown to love the song, and our version of it."